l
authorities more than once since the beginning of the century. In 1812
Mgr. Quarantotti, the prelate who, during the detention of the Pope in
France by Napoleon, was invested with the chief authority in
ecclesiastical affairs at Rome, in a letter to the Vicar-apostolic, Dr.
Poynter, formally announced the consent of the Papal See to give the
King a veto on all ecclesiastical appointments within the United
Kingdom; and, after his return to Rome, Pio VII. himself confirmed the
former title by a second addressed, by his instructions, to the same Dr.
Poynter, which letter, in 1816, was read by Mr. Grattan in the House of
Commons, it being throughout understood that this concession of the veto
to the King was conditional on the abolition of the disabilities and the
endowment of the priesthood. And in 1825, after Lord Francis Egerton's
resolution had been carried in the House of Commons, Dr. Doyle, one of
the most eminent of the Roman Catholic bishops in Ireland, in an
examination before a committee of the House of Lords, expressed the
willingness of the Roman Catholic clergy to accept a state provision, if
it were permanently annexed to each benefice, and accompanied with a
concession of an equality of civil rights to the Roman Catholic
laity.--See _Life of Lord Liverpool_, ii, 145; _Diary of Lord
Colchester, March_ 17, 1835, iii., 373; _Peel's Memoirs_, i., 306, 333
_seq._]

[Footnote 211: The sum to be thus employed seems to have been intended
to be L300,000 a year.--_Peel's Memoirs_, i., 197. On the whole question
of the payment and Peel's objections to it, see _ibid._, pp. 197, 306.]

[Footnote 212: See his "Civil Despatches," iv., 570. In February, 1829,
he said to Lord Sidmouth, "It is a bad business, but we are aground."
"Does your Grace think, then," asked Lord Sidmouth, "that this
concession will tranquillize Ireland?" "I can't tell; I hope it will,"
answered the Duke, who shortly discovered, and had the magnanimity to
admit, his mistake.--_Life of Lord Sidmouth_, iii., 453. It is
remarkable that the question of endowing the Roman Catholic clergy was
again considered by Lord John Russell's ministry in 1848. A letter of
Prince Albert in October of that year says, with reference to it: "The
bishops have protested against Church endowment, being themselves well
off; but the clergy would gratefully accept it if offered, but dare not
avow this."--_Life of the Prince Consort_, ii., 186.]

[Footnote 213: This first ex